The study of bionic olfactory receptor sensor based on surface acoustic wave device

High specific interactions between olfactory receptors and odorant molecules play an important role in the discrimination and recognition of various odorants in biological olfactory systems. This mechanism may also provide novel approaches for improving the specificity of conventional gas sensors. Inspired by the biomimic design, this study attempted to improve the specificity of gas sensor by using olfactory receptors as sensitive elements. The novel olfactory biosensor employed the surface acoustic wave (SAW) device as the secondary sensor to detect specific gas molecules. An olfactory receptor protein of C. elegans, ODR-10, was heterologously expressed on the membrane of human breast cancer cell line MCF-7. Then the crude membrane extracts of MCF-7 containing ODR-10 was coated on the sensitive region of SAW. The interactions between ODR-10 and various odorant molecules were monitored by recording the frequency shift of SAW. The experimental results indicated that ODR-10 could be expressed on the membrane of MCF-7 and gas sensors with ODR-10 showed specific responses to diacetyl (2,3-butanedione), which is known as a natural ligand for ODR-10 receptor. All the results demonstrated that the specificity of gas sensor could be improved by using olfactory receptor proteins. It provides a novel method for improving gas sensing technologies as well as for screening specific olfactory receptor-ligand pairs, which can consequently advance the progress of research on olfactory transduction mechanisms.